Los Angeles Clippers new hot ticket in town

We couldn't help looking at the score from the Los Angeles Clippers victory over their Staples Center co-tenant, the Lakers, and ask ourselves:

How did this happen?

Who knows whether it will last. Maybe the Clipper Curse will strike and Chris Paul's cross-over will disappear or Blake Griffin will lose his hops.

But something else jumped out at us -- the Clippers have sold out every one of their home games so far this season.

Funny how that works.

Put a young, athletic, competitive team on the floor and even Clippers owner Donald Sterling eventually will figure out that one sometimes must spend money to make money.

The Clippers have been very un-Clipper like lately.

For instance, the Golden State Warriors signed Clippers restricted free-agent center DeAndre Jordan to an offer sheet in the whirlwind that followed the lockout.

Clippers General Manager Neil Olshey matched the four-year, $43 million offer. Some thought this was crazy for a center who had averaged 7.1 points and 7.2 rebounds last season.

What's crazy is Jordan's athleticism. He also happens to be a buddy of Griffin, the Clippers star forward.

See, Jordan is just the kind of player the Clippers would have allowed to leave in the past. Griffin, too, as far as that goes.

Anyway, the Clippers also gave an extension to guard Eric Gordon, who ended up in a package to obtain Paul, a superstar point guard, from New Orleans.

And the team grabbed free agent Caron Butler with a three-year, $24 million deal.

Just like that, the Clippers became relevant -- even in Los Angeles.

Now, we mention all of this because a friend recently e-mailed after the Suns lost at home to New Jersey to ask if we could remember the last time that there had been a crowd as small as the 15,191 at US Airways Center that night.

A long-time scout had asked a similar question during the Nets game.

Well, yes, we had to say -- the night before against Cleveland drew less than 15,000.

And the Suns' Jan. 8 win over Milwaukee drew a paltry 13,420 fans.

We did some digging and had to go all the way back to Nov. 4, 2002 when a game against the Detroit Pistons drew 13,256 to find a smaller Suns home attendance.

Of course, the stubbornly sluggish economy doesn't help and there are a lot of fans still miffed over the labor lockout.

But even the worst crowds the Suns drew in the season that followed the last lockout in 1998-99 -- when the arena held 19,023 for basketball -- were larger than the building's capacity of 18,422 now.

Going into Sunday's NBA schedule, the Suns ranked 21st in the league in home average attendance, drawing only 15,487 for seven home games.

That trails teams such as Charlotte, Cleveland, Toronto, New Jersey and Atlanta.

Worse, the Suns are on a pace to see their attendance drop by an average of more than 2,000 per game from last year when they drew 17,567 and ranked 15th in the league.

And that was a drop of almost 100 per game from 2010, which was a drop of nearly 800 per game from 2009.

You get the picture.

The early schedule hasn't been attractive, and the NBA didn't do the Suns any favors by failing to send any of the top Eastern Conference contenders to Phoenix.

But the team hasn't given their fans any reason to believe they would have had any success against teams of that caliber, either.

Sure, Steve Nash is still a great playmaker, but all those finishers he used to find on the break are gone. And we now know Grant Hill is coming off an off-season knee procedure that has slowed him.

Anyone who reads this Heat Index also knows that we love Jared Dudley. But there used to be games when he had little to show on the stat sheet yet you felt as if he had been the difference in the game.

Now it seems as if he has decent numbers most nights, yet you don't really remember his impact.

It's early. Maybe Hill and Nash still can will the Suns into the playoff chase, Dudley will find his mojo and the fans will come back.

But it's worth remembering at a time like this that electrifying players such as Amar'e Stoudemire, expensive as they might be, don't just make winning easier.